Difference between Offshore and Native Companies

Offshore Hosting companies aren’t all that
different from normal hosting companies. These are just hosting companies which
are based in some other, foreign countries than the country you live in.

These countries often have more liberal
laws regarding the content and views uploaded by us as users.

Hence, these companies serve as a
safe-heaven when you’re trying to upload something which is either considered
illegal or just morally/ethically wrong in your own country, even when it’s not
practically the case.

For e.g. “Atheism” is considered terrorism
in Saudi Arabia. So you can’t ever host content regarding the same with a
company whose servers are in Saudi Arabia. This is just one of the cases when
you may need an offshore hosting company.

These companies have different policies for
dealing with some questionable content too as compared to native companies. For
e.g. some offshore companies ignore DMCA (copyright) claims letting you
host even copyrighted content on them.

I’ve even been with offshore hosting
companies which let users host outright illegal content. Let’s see how liberal,
feature-rich and pocket-friendly Flaunt7 is.

Basis of this Flaunt7 Review

How do you know if this review is worth
going through and that you aren’t wasting your time?

Well here are the factors we’ve considered
for this Flaunt7 review which should let you know if we’ve included what you
seek:

Anonymity: The amount of anonymity
provided by Flaunt7 both for Payments, as well as Registration.

Offshore Location: The country
the company is based out of.

Speed: Real-time speed tests,
with verifiable and transparent results from various locations.

AUP: What content is or isn’t allowed.

Security Offered: What security
measures the company offers to its customers.

Acceptance or Rejection of
Cryptocurrencies for Payments.

Flaunt7 Overview

I aim to make this Flaunt7 review extremely
in-depth and transparent. But before that, here’s an overview of some of its
features:

Offshore Country- Amsterdam.

Because these companies are not in your own
country, it’s of supreme importance to know which country they are based out
of. This helps you understand the freedom and liberty you’ll get with your
content.

Simply because, despite being offshore the
companies must adhere to the local laws of its native country. Hence, a country
with strict cyber-laws probably won’t be the best choice.

As for Flaunt7, it’s based out of
Amsterdam, Netherlands. That’s why it openly offers “Freedom of speech”, which
is one of the prime requirement for most seeking an offshore hosting solution.

Netherlands is one of the most
digitally-liberal countries on the globe! It’s what the Swiss banks are for
money!

Acceptable Use Policy

This is the second most important factor
when it comes to an offshore hosting company.

The AUP lists all the content you can, or
can’t upload on the company’s servers. Most likely you’re trying to upload
something that’s not socially, morally, or legally acceptable in some or all
countries.

Hence it’s important that we look at the
AUP to see if the type of content you’re trying to upload isn’t banned.

As for Flaunt7, note that it can be used
only for “lawful” purposes. Anything illegal isn’t allowed. Although a more
specific list bans:

Port scanners

PTC Site scripts.

Brute force Programs/scripts.

Hacking related content.

Fraud related content.

Viruses/ Malware.

Mail bomber etc.

Child Porn too is obviously banned. In fact, if C.P content is found, the site is terminated immediately, with no chances of any refund whatsoever.

DMCA Ignored

It’s being mentioned separately because not
many offshore companies provide this, but Flaunt7 does.

Also, most people perceive DMCA Ignored
hosting to be different than what it actually is.

DMCA Ignoring Policy simply means the
company will “ignore” all and any DMCA complaints made by individuals/groups or
any other third-party for any content on
their servers.

But, if and when the other party can get a
court-order from the Dutch govt. for the removal of the content, the company
will abide.

So in other words, DMCA Ignored doesn’t
mean you can simply upload copyrighted content. Rather, it only means you won’t
face consequences as long as there isn’t a court-order.

Anonymity and Information Sharing.

Anonymity in this case means the level of
personal information which is asked for during registration, at a later time,
or during payments.

It also means the ability for a company to
be able to trace a person’s real-life identity if and when required. In my
personal opinion, the less info-demanding a company is, the better it is.

Flaunt7 doesn’t require any personal
identity verification during registration, however all information (such as
name, address etc). must be true according to its T&C.

Any information found to be misleading or
false results in account termination or suspension.

So “Registration” particularly isn’t very
anonymous on the platform, as in the company will know who you are.

But then again, as long as you aren’t doing
something completely illegal this shouldn’t matter a lot.

The payment however can be made to be
completely anonymous as the company accepts Bitcoin as one of its mode of
payments. And Bitcoin as we know is largely untraceable, or “un-linkable” to a
person’s identity in most cases.

As for information sharing, Flaunt7 doesn’t
share any information with third-parties not related to the company, however
there are some exceptions.

For e.g. your information may be shared
with Domain registries when a new domain is registered. It also will share your
personal information with the court and other involved parties in a case if the
court warrants it.

In my personal opinion, it’s as anonymous
as any “legal” offshore hosting company can be. Which does provide us with a
peace of mind knowing the company operates legally without any shady operations
or policies.

Speed Review

One of the most important aspects of a
hosting company is its “Speed”. Isn’t it? Because no matter what your website
is about, there’s a 99.99% chance you want visitors to visit your site and
spend some time there.

For the purposes of this Flaunt7 review we
will test the speed provided by the company, not just on one but on three
different fronts!

We will test:

Page load-time test.

Server Response Time Test (SRT)

SRT when Traffic spikes!

The results of every single test performed
here can be verified independently and transparently by you using the provided
links! (Honesty and Transparency is how I make sure you trust our reviews,
hope it works?).

Page Load-time Test

This is the most commonly understood
concept of a hosting company’s speed. In simple words, it’s the average time
required by the browser to completely load a webpage.

Note that the results for this test vary
for each website. Simply because each website has different set of contents,
such as different images, HTML, external plugins and other resources.

The page load-time test only displays the
results after the entire page is loaded, hence the more elements on a page, the
longer it’ll take to be completely loaded.

Although it sure can be used to get an
average idea of a server’s performance.

For this test, we will be using Flaunt7’s
homepage as the test-site. Here is the time required to load the site up from
various locations across the globe:

As is evident, it’s fastest for Germany (obviously,
due to its close proximity to Netherlands) with a load-time of just 1.33
seconds. And the average from all these results won’t exceed 3 seconds at best.

Even the slower speeds such as for Brazil
aren’t depressing and are just over 3 seconds which is more than acceptable.

Server Response Time (SRT)

In my aim to make each of our reviews as
unbiased and honest as possible, I always look at things from all the possible
angles.

The page load-time test isn’t universal. As
mentioned above, it depends largely on a site’s content. A blank site would
load much faster than a site with more content, simple.

That’s where the SRT comes in. Server
Response Time is basically the time required by the server to respond to the
browser’s request to load a site.

Note that a server’s speed isn’t the only
thing that determines the SRT, however it sure is probably the largest factor
and hence relevant to this speed-test.

Here are the server response time for
Flaunt7 from various locations (Verify):

Note that it’s extremely rare for the
results to be this fast! Out of the 120+ websites we’ve tested so far, less
than 20 have turned up results as impressive as Flaunt7.

The SRT for US, Japan, Germany, Singapore
and most other locations is literally non-existent and is only
2milliseconds! Even the highest SRT
required was just 129ms for Bangalore!

Real-time Traffic Analysis

This is one of the final speed tests that
we’ll be doing in this Flaunt7 review. So we’ve tested the page load-time, and
the Server Response Time.

But, will the server still be this fast
when there’s a traffic-spike on the website? That’s what we’ll be testing.

So for the purposes of this test, we’ll be
sending upto 25 Virtual Visitors to the site. These Virtual bots demand the
same resources and attention from the server as a real human being.

And then we will monitor the server’s
performance in real-time! Here are the test results (verify):

As is evident, even with the highest number
of V.Us active on the site the required response time was only 20milliseconds!
This I must say is impressive as compared to some other similar services.

Security

One of the other important factors with a
hosting company is the security it offers to its customers, isn’t it?

One of the prime selling points for Flaunt7
is their DDoS protection. It not only mitigates any ongoing/past attacks but
also protects sites from future incidents!

Every single plan comes armed with DDoS protection
upto 500Gbps. And the best part? It’s absolutely free, unlike some other
companies which charge a premium for the protection.

It also has a “daily automatic backup”
feature which backs up user sites everyday automatically to prevent any data
loss.

They even have a “Repair Hacked Site”
service, which not only repairs hacked sites by removing malicious codes but
also provides 24/7 future support and 24/7 Website Protection for an additional
price.

They have their own firewall, especially
made to protect sites even with extremely low security. It makes sure even if
you’re not a security-buff your site won’t go down regardless of what attack is
thrown its way.

This “Repair Hacked Site” service costs USD
$250.00/year and offers Security Hardening along with Blacklist removal in its
package as well!

Pricing Plans and Payment Methods

The features seem lucrative, but is it also
pocket-friendly? Well that will mostly depend on everyone’s personal budget.

The company provides Shared, VPS as well as
Dedicated servers.

The cheapest shared server costs just USD
$0.99/month, while the most expensive may go as high as USD $137.99/month.

As for the payment methods, apart from the
anonymous Bitcoin mentioned above ,the site can also accepts:

Credit/Debit Cards.

PayPal

And even Instamojo (for
Indian customers).

Support

The final feature worth mentioning in this
Flaunt7 review is there support. The company can be contacted not just via
live-chat on the site, but also via E-mail and/or a professional contact form
on the Contact page.

The live-chat is extremely fast considering
how before redirecting you to a representative, a Bot tries to help you with
basics such as “Placing an Order”.

Final Words on
Flaunt7 Review

So let me wrap this Flaunt7 review up
folks. The company is based out of Amsterdam Netherlands, Ignores DMCA, has an
acceptable AUP for starters.

Then it tops it all up with its impressive
speed and security. The pricing plans too are affordable in my personal
opinion.

So bottomline, so far I’m happy. But hey
that’s just my opinion, why don’t you drop yours about the company as well as
this Flaunt7 review? The comment-box is all yours.